Since his second prize in the international ARD competition in Munich in 1986, Reinhold Friedrich, born in Weingarten (Baden), has been present on all important stages of the national and international music scene.
In 1982, he debuted at the Berliner Festwochen performing Luciano Berio’s Sequenza X and 1994 at the Musikverein in Vienna playing Joseph Haydn’s Concerto on the keyed trumpet. In 2003, Claudio Abbado appointed him the permanent solo trumpet of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra. Since its founding in 2003, Reinhold Friedrich has been a permanent principal trumpet of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and artistic director of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra Brass Ensemble.
Reinhold Friedrich‘s spectrum ranges from the latest solo compositions to ancient music and its historical original instruments. So he has performed with Capriccio Basel, l'Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, and the Wiener Akademie on historical instruments. This is juxtaposed with premiered works of composers such as Wolfgang Rihm, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Rebecca Saunders, Hans Werner Henze, Nicolaus A. Huber, and Adriana Hölszky. The concertos Eirene by Herbert Willi and Nobody knows de trouble I see by Bernd Alois Zimmermann (the recording of the latter received a Echo Klassik award) form important parts of his wide-ranging repertoire.
As a solo player, he has performed with ensembles such as the Berliner Barock Solisten, La Stagione Frankfurt, Wiener and Basler Kammerorchester, Bamberger and Wiener Symphoniker, Orchestre Philharmonique de la Radio France, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra and German Radio Orchestras of the NDR and HR. These performances were conducted by, among others, Claudio Abbado, Semyon Bychkov, Dennis Russell Davies, Peter Eötvös, Reinhard Goebel, Martin Haselböck, Philippe Herreweghe, Christopher Hogwood, Eliahu Inbal, Krystjan und Neeme Järvi, Dmitri Kitajenko, Sir Neville Marriner, Ingo Metzmacher, Jonathan Nott, Kazushi Ono, and Hans Zender.
His recent partners in the field of chamber music are Eriko Takezwa (piano), Robyn Schulkowsky (percussion), Martin Lücker, and Sebastian Küchler-Blessing (organ). Since its foundation in 2013, he performs in the ensemble L’éventail de Jeanne together with Claudio Bohórquez (violoncello), Sascha Armbruster (saxophone) and Eriko Takezawa (piano). In the past seasons Reinhold Friedrich has performed in Japan, Mexico, Israel, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Poland, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland. He also gave a concert with the Festival Strings Lucerne, the Kyushu Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Baroque Soloists, the Jena Philharmonic and the New Philharmonic Orchestra of Westphalia. He was also Artist in Residence of the Philharmonic Baden-Baden, and soloed in the Second Brandenburg Concerto by J.S. Bach with the Cappella Andrea Barca under the direction of Sir András Schiff.
As a professor at the University of Music Karlsruhe, he leads a class that is much sought-after worldwide. His graduates now play in the most important orchestras of the world and are among the great soloists on international stages.